20 Jul 10 Best Ice Cream and Frozen Custard Shops in St. Louis

Ask ten St. Louisans where to get ice cream and you’ll get ten answers and at least one argument about whether frozen custard counts. It does, and this list has both. What follows are ten shops we’d actually drive to, in our own order, with the address, the neighborhood, and the one thing on the menu we’d point you toward first.

Every shop below was checked to be open as of this writing. Hours shift with the seasons, so glance at the shop’s site before you load the kids in the car.

Custard or ice cream? The St. Louis answer

St. Louis is a custard town first. The difference is regulated: under the federal standard of identity (21 CFR 135.110), frozen custard has to contain at least 1.4 percent egg yolk solids by weight, and anything with less is ice cream. The yolks, plus the fact that custard is drawn fresh from the machine with less air whipped in, give it that dense, slow-melting texture. It’s why a concrete can be handed to you upside down without falling out of the cup.

One more piece of local lore, corrected: the ice cream cone was not invented at the 1904 World’s Fair in Forest Park. Cones existed before then. The fair is where they went mainstream, which is still a fine thing to tell out-of-town guests.

1. Ted Drewes Frozen Custard (St. Louis Hills and Dutchtown)

6726 Chippewa St., St. Louis 63109, and 4224 S. Grand Blvd., St. Louis 63111. The Chippewa stand on old Route 66 is the one with the line out front, and the menu goes well beyond the famous Cardinal Sin. Try the Fox Treat (hot fudge, raspberries, macadamia nuts), the Dutchman Delight (chocolate, butterscotch, pecans), or the Lewis and Clark Trail Mix, which mixes in pretzels and locally sourced granola. Ted Drewes also sells its own oatmeal cookies as a custard sandwich called the TeDads.

2. Crown Candy Kitchen (Old North St. Louis)

1401 St. Louis Ave., St. Louis 63106. Open since 1913 and still run by the Karandzieff family, Crown Candy is a working soda fountain with booths, a candy counter, and hand-spun malts served with the metal mixing cup on the side. The house dare is the 5 Malt Challenge: finish five in 30 minutes and you go on the wall. Hours are short, 10:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, closed Sundays and on Memorial Day, the Fourth, and Labor Day.

3. Sugarwitch (Carondelet)

7726 Virginia Ave., St. Louis 63111. Sugarwitch makes small-batch ice cream sandwiches, cones, and sundaes inside the old Carondelet Bakery, which the shop notes was built in 1875 and is the oldest continuously operating bakery in the city. The cafe is open Thursday through Sunday, and you can also find the stand at the Tower Grove Farmers’ Market on Saturday mornings and Tuesday evenings.

4. Clementine’s Naughty and Nice Creamery (Lafayette Square and more)

1637 S. 18th St., St. Louis 63104, with parlors in Clayton, Kirkwood, Southampton, the Central West End, Town and Country, St. Charles, and Lake Saint Louis. Clementine’s splits its case three ways: “naughty” flavors with real alcohol, such as maple bourbon with candied pecans; “nice” flavors like the signature gooey butter cake; and a full vegan lineup. The Lafayette Square original stays open until 10 p.m. most nights and 11 p.m. on weekends.

5. Ices Plain and Fancy (Shaw)

2256 S. 39th St., St. Louis 63110. Each order here is churned at the counter with liquid nitrogen, so the ice cream freezes in seconds and comes out unusually smooth. It’s an evening shop, open Wednesday and Thursday from 4 p.m. and Friday through Sunday from 2 p.m., and it sits a short walk from the Missouri Botanical Garden if you’re making a day of it.

6. Fitz’s (Delmar Loop and South County)

6605 Delmar Blvd., University City 63130, and 5244 S. Lindbergh Blvd., St. Louis 63126. Fitz’s brews its own root beer and runs a 1940s bottling line in full view of the dining room on Delmar; the South County location, in a converted dairy building, bottles Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The float is the order, and both locations run buy-one-get-one floats with a meal on Friday nights.

7. Serendipity Homemade Ice Cream (The Grove)

4400 Manchester Ave., St. Louis 63110. Beckie Jacobs has been making Serendipity’s ice creams and sorbets since 2003. Look for the Dipity Dough ice cream sandwich, the banana split, and a grown-up list of “spirited shakes.” The shop also serves coffee and dirty sodas now. Closed Mondays.

8. The Fountain on Locust (Midtown)

3037 Locust St., St. Louis 63103. One location, hand-painted Art Deco interior, and more than 20 ice cream martinis. The Grasshopper blends green creme de menthe, white creme de cacao, and vanilla ice cream. Sample ten martinis in a calendar year and you’re in the Martini Club, which gets you half off the eleventh. Closed Mondays; open late Friday and Saturday.

9. Fritz’s Frozen Custard (Valley Park, Florissant, and St. Charles County)

815 Meramec Station Rd., Valley Park 63088; 1055 St. Catherine St., Florissant 63031; plus St. Peters, O’Fallon, and Wentzville. A family operation since 1983, Fritz’s calls itself the home of the Turtle Sundae, with warm caramel, hot fudge, and pecans. The regulars’ picks include D.B.’s Delight (hot fudge, marshmallow, nuts) and the Peach Melba. Frozen custard pies are available to take home.

10. Silky’s Frozen Custard (Creve Coeur, Ellisville, and Cottleville)

12810 Olive Blvd., Creve Coeur 63141; 16043 Manchester Rd., Ellisville 63011; 3885 Mid Rivers Mall Dr., Cottleville 63376. Silky’s is the West County and St. Charles County answer to Ted Drewes: made-to-order custard, concretes, and sundaes from a walk-up window, with hours that stretch past 10 p.m. in summer. Weekday hours start later in the off-season.

A few quick notes

• Parking: Ted Drewes on Chippewa and the Loop location of Fitz’s both fill up on summer nights. Give yourself a few extra minutes.
• Dogs: Several of these shops sell pup cups or have a bench outside. Ask before you assume.

Find your scoop shop, then find the house

Half the fun of an ice cream run is the neighborhood around it: the porches on 18th Street in Lafayette Square, the Grove’s murals, the bungalows around Francis Park. If a scoop shop has you thinking about a zip code, we can help. Start on Wizah, our home-search site, or set up a free consultation and one of our agents will walk you through the neighborhoods on this list.